Move to CanvasUC Davis Canvas Learning Management System

We are writing with an update on the transition to UC Davis Canvas, the new learning management system on campus. As you know, the campus is transitioning from SmartSite to UC Davis Canvas during 2016-17. SmartSite will remain available for teaching through spring 2017. As of Sept. 20, about 570 instructors are using UC Davis Canvas to teach approximately 630 classes enrolling 23,000 students this term; the numbers are likely to rise over the next two weeks.

Getting started

Begin using UC Davis Canvas when you are ready at http://canvas.ucdavis.edu. Course shells with enrollments exist for all fall classes. Winter classes will be loaded on Oct. 1.

For more about UC Davis Canvas, including key information for fall, training workshops, drop-in hours, videos, and other resources, see http://movetocanvas.ucdavis.edu

Getting assistance

For help using UC Davis Canvas, call 844-303-8285 When you are logged in to UC Davis Canvas, you can also click on the “Help” link on the left side of the page.

We have hired students as Educational Technology (ET) Partners, who are available to come to faculty members’ offices to assist you with learning Canvas and with setting up your Canvas courses. To schedule an appointment with an ET Partner, please send your request to movetocanvas@ucdavis.edu

As mentioned to department chairs in a recent email, we will be glad to come to your department to present information about UC Davis Canvas. This could be anything from a short update to a two-hour training session.

Looking ahead

As we make the transition from SmartSite to Canvas, we will continue to discover differences between the systems. We have catalogued some differences in this Knowledge Base article, “SmartSite to Canvas Functional Mapping.” If you find areas where Canvas functions differently than you expect, please let us know. It may be that our team has found the best way to accomplish the task in Canvas. If we do not have a solution, we want to catalogue these cases so that we can find the right solutions.

We are focused this fall on supporting instruction. If you have a project site in SmartSite that you want to re-create in UC Davis Canvas, please hold off for now. We will start to address project sites in winter term.

If you have questions or comments, please contact us at movetocanvas@ucdavis.edu. We encourage you to forward this message to colleagues who would appreciate receiving this update.